


Afterparty

by Angelcroc



Series: THT (Toon Henry Tidbits) [2]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 00:27:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11324871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelcroc/pseuds/Angelcroc
Summary: Henry wakes up, meets some friends, and makes a plan.





	Afterparty

**Author's Note:**

> Just a lil follow-up. Might write a third one tomorrow.

Henry was met with an unpleasant surprise as he slowly woke up. Like everything else in this world, the feeling of "Face stuck to a surface after getting plastered" was exaggerated to the point of him literally having to pry himself off the floor. There was a loud thwap as he did so, like letting go of a stretched rubber band. He glanced up and was tempted to lie down again and go straight back to sleep.  
  


There were approximately... Henry couldn't count. His head hurt too much. There were a lot of bottles around, he decided. Far too many. How had he even gotten that much alcohol? The more he looked around, the more questions he was left with. Why was there a bear trap? Why was there something black and unpleasantly sticky under his hand? Why was his leg covered in feathers? Why was there a cow sniffing his arm? It gave him a friendly lick on the cheek and he sputtered and batted it away. As he did, he could see the cow-sized treadmill it was meant to be running on to power the machine. Had he set this up? Why? How drunk had he BEEN? How drunk would he have had to been to set up a Rube Goldberg machine?

  
Slowly and reluctantly, he sat up and attempted to piece together what had happened the previous... what had happened. He wasn't sure if it'd been at night. The studio seemed so much larger than it was in real life, and he hadn't seen the sun for too long.

  


He remembered being cornered. He remembered reaching into his pocket, and finding his flask. He remembered... remembered that he'd tossed the thing away when it was empty, and reached behind him to grab another one, and that he was so excited he could do this he did it about three more times. Henry remembered his past self keep drinking because he couldn't say no to free alcohol. Henry closed his eyes tightly as he remembered that he could apparently just create alcohol out of thin air, now. That was fine, he had self control, right? Right?

  


After this point, everything got a little bit fuzzy, but he remembered the trap. He remembered just... stumbling through, and it WORKED. He remembered Bendy laughing. He remembered getting to have an actual honest to god &$*(%ing conversation with the little demon for a moment, even if he'd gone weird at the end. 

  


Great. Wonderful. Another weapon in his arsenal. He was just... going to remember that, and do his best to ignore it until he really had to use it. Sure, being warm and sleepy and goofy helped, but he couldn't save the world if he was drunk and didn't care. As nice as that feeling was. As much as he desperately, desperately wished he didn't have to care right now. As much as he wished he could just keep drinking and--

  


“What in the hay happened here?”

  


Henry's train of thought was interrupted by Boris making his confused appearance, followed by Alice, who daintily stepped over a puddle of tar. Boris looked bemused, but Alice looked worried. She understood the concept of a gag doing permanent damage more than Boris did, and moved faster towards Henry when she saw the deadly trap.

  


“Are you okay?” She knelt down next to him, and promptly stood up again, waving a dainty hand in front of her face. There were visible stink lines coming off of him, and she coughed once or twice. Henry had the sense to look embarrassed.

  


“You reek of booze.” She said flatly as she looked him over. “And Bendy was in a real sulky state when I saw him last, so I was worried... he'd... well. Glad you had fun, at least.”

  


Was she annoyed, or was his mind playing tricks on him? That was plain unfair. Everything about this situation was unfair, from the invincible demon chasing him from the fact HE was being painted as a villain for wanting to save the world. The protagonist was unlikable, and the villain was... gruff, sure, he grudgingly acknowledged this fact, but definitely didn't deserve this. If this was how Joey wrote all his scripts after Henry left, it was no wonder the studio had closed down.

  


Henry felt a twinge of guilt at that last part, and rubbed his neck. Still sore. 

  


“Yeah, well.” He mumbled. “Take that up with him. He's the one who keeps trying to get me killed.”

  


“Awww, he doesn't mean it like that, and you know it.” Boris said. Henry closed his eyes. He had too much of a headache to listen to how he should just suck it up and try and think more positively about things. Boris did not notice Henry's mood as he kept talking.

  


“I mean, I've tried to explain it, but Bendy said you took pranks fine before? What's wrong? Why can't you just... do it?” Boris kicked his feet against the ground a few times. He looked gloomy, which made Henry feel even guiltier. He tried to gather his thoughts in a way that would make sense to the wolf. He'd tried before to explain to Boris why he couldn't survive an anvil to the head, but he never got it. Even Alice only seemed to be humoring him most of the time.  
  


“I just... can't. It's not the way humans are built, big guy. You've been in a hospital!” Henry was struck with sudden clarity. That particular short about Bendy as a doctor had been big, at the time. He remembered it winning a couple of awards, and he'd had them on his wall for ages. Boris scratched his head.

  


“Yeah, so?”

  


“Well, I mean.” Henry moved his hands wildly as he tried to explain. Boris looked puzzled, still, but Alice was clearly following along.

  


“...You were sick then, I mean, you were the patient character.”

  


“Yeah, but that was just for the scene...” Boris said. Henry shook his head.

  


“No, for humans, that sort of thing lasts for a long time. Years, even. Even if it was meant as a joke. Even if you KNEW it was meant for a joke.”

  
Now both of the cartoon characters looked shocked. Henry couldn't help but smile at the small victory. Even if these two could potentially live forever, no cartoon lasted more than a few hours, and being stuck in pain longer than that...

  


“But this didn't hurt you.” Alice pointed out, gesturing towards the machine.

  


“No, but I couldn't pull that stunt again, even if I wanted to.” Henry lied. He didn't really want to get into the topic of alcoholism with them, or the consequences. Consequences were an alien concept to these creatures, and besides, he didn't really want to get into his past with them.

  


“I need to figure out a better way of getting around safely. Could we practice, somehow?” Henry looked hopeful, but his hopes were instantly dashed by the expressions on his companions faces. They looked baffled, as if he'd suggested turning into a dragon to solve the problem.

  


“I mean!” Henry was sputtering. He was a little flustered. Why were they looking at him like that? “You know, starting with less lethal gags, like, baseball bats or rakes or something, then moving up?”

  
“Henry, sweetie, it doesn't work like that.” Alice's voice was gentle, but Henry couldn't help but find it condescending. She was the one who didn't even understand injury, not him, and he couldn't stand being patronized.

  


“Yeah. None of it should be hurting you in the first place! And if you did a gag more than once, it wouldn't be funny!” Boris looked oddly pleased, as if he was happy to be the one to explain something for once. He'd even gotten out a chalkboard and drawn a little diagram. Henry rubbed at his face.

  


“Okay, okay, scrap that. I'm going about this the wrong way. It's not the toon physics that's the issue, it's Bendy. How do I get him to stop chasing me?”

  


“Gosh, I dunno.” Boris said. “He was pretty mad, and Bendy doesn't change his mind that often. It'd be easier just to take the pranks and let him get it out of his system...” Boris trailed off. Henry began to pace in circles as he thought.

  


“I know Bendy better than anyone.” He said abruptly, stopping in his tracks. His eyes were wide, as if he'd just found the holy grail, the key to the kingdom. He looked like he sometimes did when he was trying to think of a good ending for a particularly challenging script.

  


“Excuse me?” Alice said. He nearly grabbed her by the collar of her dress and shook her, he was so excited. Henry was starting to grin a bit maniacally.

  


“Yeah!” Henry said. “I mean, sure, Joey made the sucker, but I did the nitty gritty of writing him. Joey had big ideas, but was never a master of implementation, if you know what I mean. Even if Bendy's changed since then, it probably wasn't too much, cartoons don't change, and. Maybe I can figure out what he's going to do?”

  
“Henry, I don't...” Alice looked sad, but Henry kept going. He was sure he was on the right track, or at least a better track than trying to figure out how to make toon physics work in his favor. Even if he could manage that sometimes, one little slip-up and he'd be dead. He kept pacing as he muttered to himself.

  
“And Bendy's not a hero.” Henry said, bouncing a little as he walked. It was like writing a script again, and even if he was out of practice, he could do it in his sleep. He didn't even have to draw anything this time.

  


“I mean, even if he's the protagonist, he's no hero. He's irritable, and self-serving, and rude.” Alice snorted, but Henry continued. He couldn't stop if he tried.

  


“And he doesn't know when to shut up... and he's fickle, and he's egotistical. He doesn't actually want to follow Joey's plan. He wants to make Joey happy, sure, so he's going along with it, and he wants to hurt me, the plan's just a happy accident. What does he actually want?”

  
What did Bendy want? Did he really want to turn the entire world into a cartoon, to save people? Probably not. Even if he actually thought the scheme would save people, he was too selfish to go after it as hard as he was for that.

  


Henry suddenly thought of Bendy not as he'd known him before, as lines on paper, but as the little figure who'd been following him. He thought of his expressions, and there was anger in them, sure, and a sense of smugness at finally being able to hurt Henry as badly as Henry had (supposedly) hurt him, but underneath that...

  


Bendy's expression was hungry.

  


Henry had seen this expression before, on actors, on animators in his studio, on producers, on whatever famous person he could name. It was a raw hunger for attention. It was a hunger for love, in a way, but not the romantic sort. It was a hunger for worship too, but not like how Sammy did it. Bendy wanted people watching him. He wanted people to care. He wanted gifts, not because he wanted free stuff, but because it was tangible proof that he was important. Henry had never really felt this way. He was fine, working in the background. But Bendy...

  


Bendy had been born to entertain, and to please a crowd, and there was no more crowd. Bendy was desperate to find an audience. Bendy was excited about Henry, because Henry could, in some small way, let him know that he was doing his job. Bendy saw Henry get angry, get scared, and was just happy to have some sort of impact for the first time in decades.

  


Essentially, without someone watching him, Bendy wasn't... he didn't...

  


Henry had been pacing so long that he'd worn a ring into the floor. He pulled himself out of it with a slight grunt. His expression was more somber, now. He was still mad at the demon, but he was beginning to be able to see where he was coming from. More importantly, he was beginning to see a solution, or at least the beginning of one. The idea of a solution, even if he had no idea how he was going to implement it. Even if it seemed impossible for at least ten reasons.

  


Alice, who'd been filing her non-existent fingernails, glanced up. Boris grunted a little as he was woken from his nap. Henry almost couldn't believe what he was about to say next.

  


“I need to find Bendy. We're going to reboot the show.”

  
  



End file.
